Fire on Ice (Fire on Ice Series) (2 page)

She seemed so small and fragile. I had an immediate instinct to protect her.

As we looked at each other, I could feel an overpowering energy exchange between us. I had the sense she could feel it, too, because her breath caught and I could see the slight ghost of a smile form on her lips. Then just as quickly she pulled her hand from mine and the moment was gone.

“My name’s Irish,” I clarified.

She nodded. “I’m Taylor and this is my friend, Kyle.”

I breathed a small sigh of relief when she said the word
friend
. I thought she even emphasized it but it could have just been my wishful imagination.

Kyle was still shooting daggers at me and his deal suddenly became crystal clear. He was in love with
Tay, as he called her, probably had been for years, but was stuck in the friend zone. Poor guy. I wondered how long he had been playing that game. Didn’t he have a clue she was way out of his league? He could try for a million years and that girl was never going to fuck him.

I had to admit, she was probably out
of my league, too but I thought I had a better shot than pie-faced Kyle. At least I knew enough not to get stuck in the friend zone. I didn’t have friends who were girls, or girlfriends, for that matter either. I mostly played the field and kept my options wide open. I never met a girl I’d even consider getting serious about. For Taylor, though, I
might
make an exception. She was fine but also refined. She was definitely nothing like the chicks at O’Sullivan’s. This girl was no hockey whore. Taylor was the kind of girl you’d take home to mom, if you had a mom worth taking a girl home to meet.

Taylor was still staring at me. When Kyle leaned close and whispered something in her ear, I wanted to punch him. How was it possible that I was already possessive of her and jealous of him? I barely even knew her.

Taylor frowned as if she was trying to process what he just said. Then he leaned in and whispered something else to her and she nodded.

“We’ve really got to get back to work,” Kyle said dismissively, as if I was nothing, less than nothing.

I caught Taylor’s gaze again and our eyes locked. I loved the way the hazel color sparkled with flecks of gold. She was truly stunning.

“Can I get your number?” I asked. I couldn’t believe the words came out of my mouth. I sounded like a
freakin’ dork. More of a dork than her friend Kyle.

“I don’t think so.” I thought I saw a hint of sadness in her eyes as she shot me down.

I just stood there stunned. I had never been rejected by a girl in my life. I was always the one who got to pick and choose. For the first time I knew how it felt not to be chosen. It sucked.

“She said no,” Kyle reminded me and I wanted to punch him again. I was already getting sick of his dorky pie-face.

“Why not?” I asked.

She looked at me and we stared at each other for another long moment and I knew that I wanted her.

Not only did I want her, I would do whatever it took to get her. And I was not one to give up. In fact, once I made my mind up about something, I was like a dog with a bone, I never gave up.

She rubbed her lips together nervously. God, I wanted to kiss those lovely pink lips.

“I don’t want to sound elitist or anything,” she started.

I held up a palm. “Just wait. You realize when someone qual
ifies what they’re about to say with:
I don’t want to sound elitist
, that’s exactly what they are.”

She scrunched up her button nose. “I just don’t know how else to say it. So I’ll just say it. I’m not going to date a hockey player.”

I laughed. I didn’t mean to but I just cracked up. Taylor wore the most puzzled expression on her face.

“You may be the only female on the planet who
has ever uttered those words.”

She just stared at me, blinking.

“What?” I continued. “It’s true. Do you know how many girls in this bar would go home with me tonight if I asked?”

She shook her head.

“How about every one of them.”

“Well, I guess I’m not like every other girl in here, am I?”

And that’s one of the many reasons I wanted her. She wasn’t like any other girl I had ever met.

“So what have you got against hockey players
,” I challenged.

“Nothing,” she said but I could see depths of pain in her eyes which told me there was a lot she had against hockey players.
Or maybe one particular hockey player from her past?

“Then why?” I knew I was walking a very thin line and I probably shouldn’t push her but I wanted to go out with her more than was rational.

She sighed. “Look, nothing personal. I’m just not interested in dating an athlete, okay?”

I shook my head. “No, it’s not okay and it is personal. I don’t know what happened to get you so turned off of athletes but I’m not like that. I’m not some asshole who’s going to screw you over.”

When I saw she was blinking away tears, I immediately regretted my words. Some asshole had screwed her over and she was lumping me into the category with every other asshat jock. Not that I didn’t deserve to be there. I’m sure there were plenty of girls who would tell you in great detail how I screwed
them
over.

She looked at me with her big brown eyes and I nearly mel
ted. Whatever had happened to her in the past with the asshole jock apparently still hurt. The pain was etched in her face.

“What happened with that blonde girl?” she asked.

It took me a moment to realize who she was talking about. She must have been watching me with the blonde girl who had approached me at the bar. I wondered what the exchange must have looked like from her perspective. Probably not good. I decided to tread carefully.

“She wanted me to take her home,” I admitted.

She raised an eyebrow. “Is that all?”

I shook my head. “She wanted to hook up. Is that what you want to hear?” I couldn’t believe my voice actually cracked as I spoke. When had that ever happened before?

“And what did you say to her?”

“I told her no.”

“And were you nice about it?”

I figured she must have seen the girl storm away. “I could have been nicer,” I confessed.

“That’s what I thought,” she said dismissively.

I glanced over at Kyle and he was seething. “Dude, she doesn’t want to go out with you. Get a clue.” I wanted to punch the condescending look right off the prick’s face.

But I wasn’t about to give up. If nothing else, I was a fighter and I always fought for what I wanted.

“Give me your phone,” I said in a last ditch attempt to at least get her to talk to me again.

She and Kyle both grabbed for her smart phone that was sitting on the table in front of her.

“Don’t give that guy your phone,” Kyle insisted. “You don’t even know him.”

And the last thing you want is for her to get to know me
, I thought. That asshole didn’t want any competition.

Taylor nervously rubbed her lips together as she considered the phone in her hand.

“It’s true,” I agreed “You don’t know me. But do you really think that if I was up to no good, I would be standing here, in the middle of a crowded club, where everyone knows I play for the Firestorm? I’m not exactly inconspicuous.”

I glared at Kyle.

She held her phone in her hand and looked into my eyes. Her gaze was so penetrating, it sent me
into a brief tailspin and I felt a lump forming in my throat. I swallowed hard and tried to regain my composure.

“You and I both know the only reason you’re strutting around this bar is to pick up girls.”

I furrowed my brow. “Did you just say I was strutting?”

She crossed her small arms over her chest. “You’ve been strutting around this place like an arrogant peacock since you got here.”

I could feel a small grin forming in the corners of my mouth. I tried my best to stifle it but I knew I now had the upper hand. “And just how would you know? Have you been watching me since I got here?”

She blinked nervously and I could see she was getting flu
stered. She would never admit it but she at least found me attractive enough, or interesting enough, to watch. It was a start. I wondered what it would take for me to get the phone.  I decided the direct approach was the best course of action.

“Come on,” I
pleaded “I just want it for a minute. I promise I’ll give it right back.”

I tried to give her my most endearing smile. The one I used for publicity shots for
all of the Firestorm marketing crap they asked us to do.

She was rubbing her lips together again considering whether to give in or not. Then, to my complete surprise, she handed me her phone.

The last time I felt I’d scored that big of a victory was when I made the winning shot against our rival team, the Wildcats.

As quickly as I could, I programmed my cell number and email into her contacts, then I handed her back her phone. “You’ve got my cell and email. You can call, text or email me anytime.”

She nodded but I could tell I was nowhere close to scoring a goal. I’d only made one good shot. I wasn’t sure she’d actually follow through and use the information I’d given her. I’d just have to wait it out and I knew it was going to kill me.

“I’ll let you get back to your work,” I said.

“Finally,” Kyle mumbled and I knew I was going to have to shut him down as quickly as possible. I knew pie-face had invested too much time and energy into getting into Taylor’s pants and he wasn’t going to give her up without a fight. In my gut I knew he was going to do everything he could to make me look bad in her eyes and sabotage anything between us. And if I was in his shoes, I probably would have done the same damn thing.

Taylor was already
back to reading her book, so I turned to leave. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d actually left a bar alone. It felt oddly satisfying.

I took one quick glance back and I saw that Taylor was pee
ring up at me from her book, watching me leave. A tiny ghost of a smile crossed her beautiful face and then she quickly looked back down at her book.

At that moment, I felt like I at least had a chance. Like ever
ything else in my life, it was probably a long shot, but at least it was a shot.

Two

Taylor

I stared at Kian’s number in my cell phone contacts. I had been looking at it for the past hour, angry at myself for wasting so much of my precious time thinking about him and yet feeling physically incapable of doing anything else.

I knew there was no way I was ever going to date another hockey player, so what was the point? The point was there was something about
Kian that was so captivating, so completely and utterly appealing, that I couldn’t think about anything else.

When I thought about the way his magnificent blue eyes gazed down at me, with so much passion and longing, a wave of desire rushed through me at the memory. He was so tall and muscular and
masculine
. Every pore of his body seemed to ooze testosterone. And the sheer size of his hand as it held mine made me feel so small and vulnerable yet safe and protected at the same time.

Big, athletic guys like
Kian usually had the opposite effect on me. They tended to make my skin crawl and brought out every flight response in my body. After my experience in high school, I generally went out of my way to steer clear of anyone even remotely resembling a jock.

But for some reason, I didn’t want to steer clear of
Kian and that concerned me. That I was seriously considering calling him concerned me even more. The idea of dating a professional hockey player was completely out of the question.

I tried to remind myself that I was so close to finally achie
ving the first step of my long-held dream of becoming a psychologist. This was my last year as an undergraduate and I wanted to concentrate on my research internship and getting a coveted co-publication in a peer-reviewed journal. It would be a monumental feat as an undergraduate because it was something so very few students achieved. But if I did achieve it, I knew my direct entry into a Ph.D. program would be almost assured.

I didn’t need a guy, especially a hockey player, to knock me off my career path. I wanted to complete my Ph.D. by the time I was twenty-six and I was determined to achieve
my goal. 

I was just about ready to delete
Kian’s contact information from my phone when an image of him popped into my mind. The harder I tried to fight the feelings the memory of him evoked, the stronger the images of him played in my brain: his crooked little half smile, his blazing blue eyes, the overwhelming energy of his presence and his uber-masculinity. He completely took my breath away. 

Every connection I made with him in just the short period of time we were together, even the smallest touch, felt so profound and intimate. The psychologist in me wanted to know why. I
needed
to know why. Why was there such an immediate and intense connection between us? What was it about Kian Kavanagh that had such a hold on me?

Before my rational, scientific mind could take over, my clearly irrational and emotional side dialed his
digits.

“Taylor?” he said. His voice seemed filled with both surprise and excitement.

“Hi Kian,” I replied suddenly regretting that I called and feeling anxious about what to say next.

“I’m glad you called,” his voice held so much sincerity, it su
rprised me. Most of the athletes I had associated with in the past acted like God’s gift to women with so little depth and even less sincerity.

“I’m not even sure why I did,” I admitted. I didn’t have the nerve to tell him that I couldn’t stop thinking about him. And I didn’t want him to get too cocky. I wasn’t even sure what I wanted anyway. It wasn’t like I was in the market for a boyfriend, quite the opposite. My only goal was to get into a doctoral program and I didn’t want anything to stand in my way.

I certainly didn’t
want
to date a hockey player. Not that he had ever mentioned dating. Most of the hockey players I had known thought about getting laid. And getting laid was about the last thing on my mind.

“Maybe you called because you want to see me again?” he suggested. God, even
Kian’s voice oozed charisma. I imagined him giving me that sexy half grin of his and a little shiver ran through me at the thought.

“Maybe,” I managed to say even though my throat was su
ddenly dry.

“Tomorrow,” he stated and there was no question. It seemed more like a command, one that I found myself wanting to obey. “Meet me for coffee.”

This was the moment of truth. Would I say yes? Could I say yes? A big part of me was scared to death to even consider going down that path yet here was another part of me that was compelled to do exactly that.

“Okay,” I replied with definite hesitation in my voice. “But I’m booked with classes, so it will have to be lunch time at the little place off the west side of campus.
The Twisted Mug. Do you know it?”

“I’ll find it,” he said. “See you tomorrow.”

Before I could respond further, he hung up.

***

I was still thinking about Kian when there was a pounding on my suite door. I knew it was Kyle and for the first time in the three years we’d been friends, I didn’t want to see him.

I already knew what he was going to say when I told him about my date. I could see the way he was looking at
Kian when we were at the bar. Kyle knew every sordid detail about what happened to me in high school and he didn’t want to see me get hurt again. I understood his desire to protect me but this time I didn’t want him to. I wanted to see Kian again. I needed to see him. And I knew Kyle would do everything he could to talk me out of it.

“
Tay,” Kyle said through the door. “Are you there? I thought we were going to study for our Research Design class.”

I heaved a sigh then slowly opened the door. Kyle gave me his signature goofy grin but as soon as he saw the look in my eyes, his smile quickly faded and was replaced by a look of concern as he studied my face.

“What’s wrong?” he asked. He could read every one of my moods almost instantly.

“Do you want the truth or do you want me to lie so we can actually get some studying done?”

“
I can handle the truth
,” he said doing a terrible Jack Nicholson impression in the process.

“That’s not even the right line,” I laughed. “It’s
you can’t handle the truth
. And your impression sucks.”

“But I did make you laugh,” he pointed out.

He threw his backpack on my desk, removed his textbook and made himself at home on my bed. He patted a spot next to him and said, “Aren’t you going to join me?”

I grabbed my book and sat down next to him. Kyle and I had been best friends and nearly inseparable since our freshman orientation when we found out we were psychology majors and both were trying for early entry into a doctoral program. We had so much in common from taste in music and food to our love of movies, that I sometimes felt like Kyle was a male version of me.

I told him when we first met that I wasn’t interested in dating him, or anyone else, and I wasn’t at the time. I was still trying to recover from the nastiness of my senior year of high school. The last thing I wanted was a boyfriend. Kyle said he understood and that he just wanted to be friends, which is what we became. And I loved Kyle like I would love a brother, if I had one. Unfortunately, I never found him the least bit attractive in the way that I sometimes thought he wanted.

In the three years I had been in college, I had never really found any guy attractive, at least not attractive enough to risk
getting hurt again. Whenever a guy seemed interested, I usually did my best to completely blow him off. And it always worked.

Until I met
Kian.

For some reason, I didn’t try very hard to blow him off. It’s almost like I didn’t want to. And the little effort I did put into dissing him didn’t seem to faze him
one bit.

And that scared the hell out of me.

My vow to never date an athlete again, let alone a hockey player, was in serious jeopardy when it came to Kian Kavanagh.

“So,” Kyle said. “What’s on your mind? I know it’s not ps
ychological research.”

“Don’t be mad,” I stated. His eyes narrowed to angry slits and I had the feeling he knew what was coming next. “I’m meeting
Kian for coffee tomorrow.”

“The hockey player?” he asked incredulously.

I nodded.

“Why?” His voice started to crack because he was clearly u
pset.

I shrugged. Even though he was my best friend, I didn’t feel comfortable talking with him about my overwhelming attraction to
Kian.

“You can’t go out with him,” Kyle insisted.

“But I want to,” I admitted.

Kyle slammed his textbook closed and it startled me. “Do you want people to think you’re a hockey whore?” His words were like ice.

“What are you talking about?” I felt my voice growing higher pitched and I knew I was getting defensive.

“A hockey whore—a puck bunny. Those guys use women and pass them around like toys. You of all people should know that.”

I glared at Kyle and I could feel my eyes starting to well up with tears.

“I’m sorry,” Kyle said quickly but it was too late. The damage was already done.

I wiped at a stray tear that was streaming down my cheek. “I don’t feel like studying anymore.”

Kyle reached for my hand but I pulled it away.

“I’m really sorry,” he said quietly, clearly upset.

“I should have never told you about Austin.”

Every time I thought about Austin, my skin crawled. Austin was the star hockey player I dated my senior year of high school. He was an extremely popular jock who every girl in the school wanted but he wanted me. I thought I was in love but he completely and totally betrayed me and made my life such a living hell I had to finish my senior year being homeschooled.

“Look at me, Taylor,” Kyle pleaded.

When my eyes met Kyle’s I could see he was blinking back tears.

“You’re my best friend,” he continued. “I don’t want to see you get hurt.”

I didn’t want to tell him I thought Kian was different because I knew it sounded stupid. I didn’t feel like Kian was going to hurt me but I didn’t even know him. You always think a guy is going to be
different
until he’s
not
.

“We’re only meeting for coffee,” I said trying to make it sound like no big deal, even though in my heart I knew it was a really big deal. 

“The Firestorm players are like celebrities in this town. They’ve even got groupies. Girls willing to give them anything they want whenever they want it.”

“You’re talking about the puck bunnies?”

He nodded then continued, “Do you really think he’s interested in anything real? These guys are interested in making goals and once they’ve scored, it’s on to the next game.”

If Kyle was trying to put doubts in my mind about
Kian, he was doing a great job. I didn’t want to be just another goal for Kian to score. I learned that lesson the hard way with Austin and I was still nursing the wounds. The thought of going through anything like that again made my stomach knot.

“I told you I’m not interested in dating anyone and I meant it,” I snapped. “And if I was going to date, it would definitely not be a hockey player.”

Kyle raised an eyebrow. “Going for coffee isn’t a date?”

I shook my head dismissively. “No, it’s definitely not a date.”

“If you say so.” Kyle didn’t sound convinced and neither was I. What was I doing? Why had I agreed to meet Kian for coffee? I felt like I was climbing down a rabbit hole and I had no idea where it would lead, yet I felt oddly compelled to do it.

The attraction I felt toward
Kian was too strong to ignore. I was completely drawn to him and I had no idea why. The way he looked at me with his beautiful blue eyes completely took my breath away. And chills ran through my body when he touched my hand. I wanted to feel more of that. I wanted to feel more of him. I wanted to feel more of what I felt when I was with him.

But was I willing to risk getting hurt again to get it? To poss
ibility get my heart smashed to bits and thrown on the ground and stomped on. To have my heartbreak on display for the world to see in an act of ultimate betrayal and public humiliation? Because that’s what the beloved hockey hero Austin Douglas did to me my senior year of high school.

I was so confused my brain was starting to hurt.

“Can we please just study?” I suggested. “I don’t want to talk about the terrible world of dating anymore.”

Kyle looked at me and narrowed his eyes. I thought he might say something but refrained. He opened his textbook instead. “Okay, we left off last time with correlations. An example of a correlation might be—if a guy plays sports, he’s more likely to be an asshole.”

I heaved a sigh because I knew it was going to be a very long night.